A Special Guest Lecture by Professor Choi Jang-jip Professor Choi Jang-jip, an emeritus professor of Korea University, has been emphasizing the importance of representative democracy and party politics when other progressive intellectuals were admiring the upsurge of public outrage and direct democracy shown during the “candlelight demonstrations” that heated up the summer of 2008. He emphasized the importance of party politics in his lecture, “From Where and To Where Is Korean Democracy Going,” on December 7, 2009. The lecture was organized by Yonsei’s Institute of State Governance (directed by Professor Kim Dong-no). First of all, Professor Choi rated Korea’s process of democratization as a successful case in that Korea paid a comparatively low cost for democracy, although there were sacrifices like Gwangju Democratization Movement in 1980. The military regimes were also softer and more systemized than those in the Latin American countries, and thus it was not possible for them to mobilize the military power to take over power in 1987. Professor Choi attributed the sudden weakening of democratization movement after 1987 to the fact that “their ideology, vision, values, and behavioral orientations were too unrealistically idealistic and too radical to understand and accept the modern representative democracy.” On labor movement and people’s movement, he commented that there are many cases in which activists act on a pretext linked to their ideological interest and radical objectives, which represents the position of the radical minority rather than the majority of the moderates. “The task that the progressives in Korea have to accomplish is to concentrate their energy toward a direction that can solve the socio-economic problem of the society through institutional means allowed by democracy, that is, through political parties.” His remark means that the interest of working people and business owners should be represented by political parties. Professor Choi also commented on his view on the conservatives. “The domination of the conservatives can attain ethical leadership only when they show themselves respecting and practicing democratic values.” “Liberalism should be compatible with conservatism,” he argued, “for it encourages them to accept pluralist values, and not just the growth-centered approach, of coexistence with and toleration of those holding rival views.”